Creative rummage

Over a foot of snow fell at our house these past few days, and there was enough moisture in the valley to shut down the remains of the Lake Christine Fire. Winter has been inaugurated and there has been a collective sigh of relief after a summer of fires, drought and record high temperatures. Fall is when the elk start moving down from the high country to dodge hunters and to dig for vegetation in easier terrain. Years ago the poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips was the Aspen Words writer in residence here in Woody Creek, and he became mesmerized by our local resident elk herd, particlarly with its magnificent patriarch who roamed our small corner of the valley. This poem, “Measure for Measure”, appeared in the New Yorker:

Alone in Woody Creek, Colorado,I fell asleep reading “Measure for Measure,”Right at the part where the Duke deliversHis Old Testament decision of hastePaying for haste, and leisure answeringLeisure, like quitting like, and (wait for it)Measure for measure. I saw it performedOnce, in Stratford; I was maybe twenty.I only remembered the “measure stillFor measure” part, until now. It stuckWith me. But the rest of it was wiped cleanFrom my memory, all of Stratford, too.Still, the way the actor leaned on that halfLine, “measure still for measure,” as though itWere the measure of his self, measure stillFor measure, all these years, I rememberedBeing the heart of the play, its great gist;But I forgot it was a death sentence.Whether Angelo deserved such a fate,Or Isabella’s ability toRise above the mire doesn’t matter:Death, not beauty, woke me.My neck aches.All of Shakespeare feels like lead on my chest,Not for death, let’s face it, death awaits us,Usually with less prescient language,But death measures us with a noun’s contemptFor our imagination, being deathBut not dying, making do, like when ITurn from the Bard, look outside and beholdA herd of a hundred elk, survivingThe snow as they know how––being elk.An hour ago they were in the hills,But now they graze a mere five feet away,Their world othered by these austere windows;The massive seven-pointer, chin held highTo prevent his thick neck from crashing down,Hoofs the snow and starts toward me, but then turnsTo compass the valley between his horns.

To learn more about the Aspen Words writer in residence program: http://www.aspenwords.org/programs/writers-in-residence/current-residents/

And then she asked why all serious gardeners, the ones who push beyond a basic marigold border, aren’t considered eco-artists. She pointed out that gardeners have a singular understanding of the climate crisis because they take note of subtle and dramatic changes in the weather, wildlife patterns, and soil.

In the early seventies, my father accepted a post in the Nixon administration to represent the United States as its ambassador to El Salvador, and my siblings and I moved to a new country and a bilingual school. Half the day was in Spanish, the other in English. My father insisted that I would be fluent in Spanish in no time. Instead, I got a crash course in bullying.

I believe in portals. The kinds that don’t require passwords, only presence. There are famous portals like the ones in the Narnia Chronicles or the Harry Potter series. I have portals of my own: my garden is one and Independence Pass is another.

I fit one artist stereotype quite well — I was never a math star. Far from it. I stumbled through pre-calculus and closed the door and assumed I would always bellyflop when it came to mathematics. When I took my place in the world of practical numbers -one fleshed out in spreadsheets, budgets, and investment data - I realized I liked looking for patterns within the numbers and that…